


AO3 Census: Site Use

by centreoftheselights



Series: AO3 Census 2013 [4]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: AO3 Statistics, Archive of our Own - Freeform, Archived From Tumblr, Archived From centrumlumina Tumblr, Fandom Statistics, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Research, statistics, survey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2019-09-18 04:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16988355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights
Summary: This is part of the AO3 Census project, a survey that asked over 10,000 AO3 users about their demographics and habits.An overview of the 'Site Use' section of the survey.





	1. Length of Use

N.B. The above percentages refer to % of total responses to this question, and sum to 100%. Percentages shown below refer to the % of total survey participants unless otherwise specified.

**Question**

This question was phrased as “How long have you been using AO3?” Only one response could be selected.

**Responses**

The responses were selected with the following frequencies:

  * **Less than 6 months** \- 727 respondents. 7.3%
  * **6 months - 1 year** \- 2298 respondents. 23.0%
  * **1 - 2 years** \- 3474 respondents. 34.7%
  * **2 - 3 years** \- 1898 respondents. 19.0%
  * **3 - 4 years** \- 899 respondents. 9.0%
  * **4 - 5 years** \- 404 respondents. 4.0%
  * **More than 5 years** \- 264 respondents. 2.6%



41 respondents (0.4%) did not respond to this question.

Taking the values for each range to be at the central point of the group, with the outermost values being 3 months and 5 years respectively, the mean length of use was found to be **1.82 years** (22 months) with a standard deviation of **1.18 years** (14 months). The median length of use was in the range **1 - 2 years**.

**Reliability**

Archive of Our Own’s open beta began on 14 November 2009, a little less than 4 years before this survey took place. However, some respondents may have been involved in the closed beta which began on 3 October 2008, just under 5 years before this survey. This was probably the earliest point in time that AO3 was available for use. (ETA: Some people have contacted me saying that developers and OTW members were using the site before this point, but that this group was definitely smaller than 264 people.)

The survey’s original closing date was the end of October, which would have allowed the very earliest users to have been using the site for more than 5 years. However, the early close of the survey means that the 264 people who entered this category were misremembering their length of time on the site. It is also possible that some of the earlier users of the site selected the longest length of time without checking its accuracy.

This question, and all others in this section, are subject to recall bias of this kind, as the responses given may not accurately reflect reality.


	2. Frequency of Use

N.B. The above percentages refer to % of total responses to this question, and sum to 100%. Percentages shown below refer to the % of total survey participants unless otherwise specified.

**Question**

This question was phrased as “How frequently do you use the archive?” Only one response could be selected.

**Responses**

The responses were selected with the following frequencies:

  * **Less than once a month** \- 299 respondents. 3.0%
  * **Between once a week and once a month** \- 1127 respondents. 11.3%
  * **One or two times a week** \- 1241 respondents. 12.4%
  * **Several times a week** \- 2451 respondents. 24.5%
  * **Daily** \- 2557 respondents. 25.6%
  * **Several times a day** \- 2303 respondents. 23.0%



27 respondents (0.3%) did not respond to this question.

By assigning each range a value in terms of number of visits per week (0.2, 0.4, 1.5, 4, 7, and 15 respectively) the mean was found to be **6.48 visits per week** with a standard deviation of **5.17 visits/week**. The median lay within the range labelled **“Several times a week”**.

**Reliability**

This question relies on respondents reporting their behaviour accurately, and will therefore be affected by recall biases.


	3. Session Length

N.B. The above percentages refer to % of total responses to this question, and sum to 100%. Percentages shown below refer to the % of total survey participants unless otherwise specified.

**Question**

This question was phrased as “How long do you spend on AO3 in a typical session?” Only one response could be selected.

**Responses**

The responses were selected with the following frequencies:

  * **Less than 15 minutes** \- 247 respondents. 2.5%
  * **15 - 30 minutes** \- 1270 respondents. 12.7%
  * **30 minutes - 1 hour** \- 2808 respondents. 28.1%
  * **1 - 2 hours** \- 2666 respondents. 26.6%
  * **2 - 3 hours** \- 1643 respondents. 16.4%
  * **More than 3 hours** \- 1309 respondents. 13.1%



62 respondents (0.6%) did not respond to this question.

Taking the values for each range to be at the midpoint of the possible values, with the “More than 3 hours” value being 4 hours, the mean session length was found to be **1.60 hours** (96 minutes) with a standard deviation of **1.16 hours** (70 minutes). The median value is within the range **1 - 2 hours**.

By combining this with the [frequency of use values](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16988355/chapters/39932793) from the previous question, I approximated the number of hours per week each respondent spent on the site. These ranged from 0 hours/week (one or both questions not answered), which was found for 74 respondents (0.7%), to 60 hours/week, which was answered by 603 respondents (6.0%).

The mean value found for all 10,005 respondents was **11.7 hours/week** with a standard deviation of **15.3 hours/week** and a median of **5.6 hours/week**. The mode value was **6 hours/week** , which was found for 819 respondents (8.2%).

**Limitations**

As with all behavioural questions, this relies upon the respondents answering accurately, which may not be the case.


	4. Activities

N.B. The above percentages refer to % of total responses to this question, and sum to 100%. Percentages shown below refer to the % of total survey participants unless otherwise specified.

Question

This question was phrased as “Which of the following activities do you use AO3 for?” and was accompanied by the instructions “Check all which apply.”

**Responses**

Responses were selected with the following frequencies:

  * **Archiving works** \- 3814 respondents. 38.1%
  * **Reading works** \- 9866 respondents. 98.6%
  * **Downloading works** \- 4547 respondents. 45.4%
  * **Kudosing works** \- 7411 respondents. 74.1%
  * **Commenting on works** \- 4358 respondents. 43.6%
  * **Bookmarking works** \- 5618 respondents. 56.2%
  * **Subscribing to works** \- 4839 respondents. 48.4%
  * **Viewing your History** \- 2609 respondents. 26.1%
  * **Browsing author profiles** \- 3424 respondents. 34.2%
  * **Browsing tags** \- 6560 respondents. 65.6%
  * **Checking the number of works in tags** \- 2274 respondents. 22.7%
  * **Tag wrangling** \- 226 respondents. 2.3%
  * **Participating in challenges or exchanges** \- 844 respondents. 8.4%
  * **Organising challenges or exchanges** \- 99 respondents. 1.0%
  * **Viewing collections of works** \- 2432 respondents. 24.3%
  * **Other: Textbox** \- 185 respondents. 1.8%



20 respondents (0.2%) did not respond to this question.

There were 59,106 boxes checked in total, or an average of 5.91 per respondent, with a standard deviation of 2.72. Both the median and mode number of responses was 6, which was given by 1362 respondents (13.6%). The most responses given by a single respondent was 15.

4563 people selected 5 or fewer boxes, accounting for a total of 16,000 responses. Of those 4563 people:

  * 804 selected Archiving works (5.0%)
  * 4480 selected Reading works (28.0%)
  * 1252 selected Downloading works (7.8%)
  * 2325 selected Kudosing works (14.5%)
  * 672 selected Commenting on works (4.2%)
  * 1413 selected Bookmarking works (8.8%)
  * 848 selected Subscribing to works (5.3%)
  * 245 selected Viewing your History (1.5%)
  * 692 selected Browsing author profiles (4.3%)
  * 2202 selected Browsing tags (13.8%)
  * 409 selected Checking the number of works in tags (2.6%)
  * 20 selected Tag wrangling (0.1%)
  * 66 selected Participating in challenges or exchanges (0.4%)
  * 5 selected Organising challenges or exchanges (0.0%)
  * 523 selected Viewing collections of works (3.3%)
  * 44 selected Other (0.3%)



**Other**

Among the 185 write-in responses, the following answers appeared more than 5 times:

  * Posting works (52 responses)
  * Writing (28 responses)
  * Viewing feedback or statistics for own works (23 responses)
  * Viewing other users’ bookmarks (15 responses)
  * Subscribing to authors (9 responses)
  * Finding recs (8 responses)
  * Searching for works (6 responses)
  * Viewing trends/statistical analysis (6 responses)




	5. Languages

N.B. The above percentages refer to % of total responses to this question, and sum to 100%. Percentages shown below refer to the % of total survey participants unless otherwise specified.

**Question**

This question was phrased as “What language(s) do you normally use on the archive?” with the instructions “Check all which apply.”

**Responses**

Translations of the language names into English were not shown on the survey, but have been provided below for ease of reference.

The responses were selected with the following frequencies:

  * **English** \- 9974 respondents. 99.7%
  * **Русский** [Russian] - 58 respondents. 0.6%
  * **Español** [Spanish] - 168 respondents. 1.7%
  * **Français** [French] - 151 respondents. 1.5%
  * **Italiano** [Italian] - 42 respondents. 0.4%
  * **Deutsch** [German] - 120 respondents. 1.2%
  * **中文** [Chinese] - 25 respondents. 0.2%
  * **Polski** [Polish] - 41 respondents. 0.4%
  * **Português** [Portuguese] - 37 respondents. 0.4%
  * **Bahasa Indonesia** [Indonesian] - 5 respondents. 0.0%
  * **Other: Textbox** \- 27 respondents. 0.3%



23 respondents (0.2%) did not respond to this question.

A total of 10648 boxes were checked, or an average of 1.07 per response. The most responses given by a single person was 4. 9376 respondents (93.9%) selected only one box.

606 respondents checked two or more boxes, accounting for 1272 responses in total. Of those 606 people:

  * 605 selected English (47.6%)
  * 58 selected Русский (4.6%)
  * 167 selected Español (13.1%)
  * 150 selected Français (11.8%)
  * 41 selected Italiano (3.2%)
  * 120 selected Deutsch (9.4%)
  * 24 selected 中文 (1.9%)
  * 40 selected Polski (3.1%)
  * 36 selected Português (2.8%)
  * 4 selected Bahasa Indonesia (0.3%)
  * 27 selected Other (2.1%)



**Other**

Of the 27 write-in responses, the following were entered more than once:

  * Nederlands/Dutch (6 responses)
  * Hebrew (5 responses)
  * Finnish (5 responses)
  * Danish/Dansk (3 responses)
  * 日本語 [Japanese] (3 responses)
  * Svenska/Swedish (2 responses)



**Limitations**

This survey was written in English, and thus will have an obvious bias towards English-language fandom.


End file.
